


touch of the sun

by essektheylyss (midnightindigo)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, Transformation Spell, episode 97 spoilers, just layers of metaphors over here, just some soft shadowgast vibes cuz they deserve it, so many sun/light metaphors okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:40:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23137825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightindigo/pseuds/essektheylyss
Summary: He has never been made for the light, but perhaps he never deserved it. In this body, he can learn how to earn it, with the sun itself guiding his way.Light is so much easier to follow when the sun is standing in front of you, grasping your hand. He never realized the brightest thing in this world could be another person.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 4
Kudos: 134





	touch of the sun

**Author's Note:**

> No idea what this is but it would not let me go until I wrote it and damn if I don't love how it turned out. Just needed a little bit of softness for Essek after the past few weeks. He's not here yet, mindset wise, but I believe in him if he's got his friends on his side!

the cracked earth yields to skin the warm color of the clay scattered on the wood around him, taupe hair falling longer in his bright eyes than he’s quite used to, light and messy and curled, eyes made for the sun that streams through the porthole of the ship.

he feels almost alone here, knowing what has been done, what he has allowed to happen, but he cannot bring himself to remember the sensation. this is not a place for loneliness, this well-worn ship docked in a bright harbor, nor this room with a freckled wizard closing a spell book and looking upon this form of his for the first time with a crooked smile, caught between that dangerous pride he recognizes and remorse that he is still learning to know.

“it is not quite you, is it?” caleb asks, but he shakes his head.

“it is still me,” he says, voice unimaginably soft as he sits up and looks upon weathered palms, long elven fingers, runs them over ears that feel like the ones he knows. he couldn’t think what kind of adjustment a truly different race may have been, and opted instead for another elven form, something more suited for the menagerie coast and the sun, the sun. 

“well yes, of course,” caleb agrees. the rush of the sea nearly drowns them out, and he can’t say out loud why they are still whispering, but somewhere in his soul he knows. “but it is… very much not you.”

and it is not—intentionally, of course, to make him harder to find. neither empire nor dynasty knows this spell exists, so it is the simplest way to erase essek thelyss from the face of exandria, but it is unnerving to acknowledge that he no longer exists. 

if essek thelyss no longer exists, then he is free to do what he wants. and isn’t that a terrifying thought?

“what shall I call myself?” he wonders as he stands, several inches taller now, and brushes the dirt from his limbs. 

“ah, names,” Caleb says, and his smile widens again. “you will think of something.”

and as dangerous as it would be, as foolish, as impossible, he longs to wave his hands and change his fate, though he knows it is far too late. the hour that the ritual took was both an eternity and a moment, and it feels as though if he just reached out his fingers, turned the knob that he is so used to, he could change that single decision, alter potentiality to bring him back to infinite possibility rather than one choice as concrete as the clay at his feet.

his hands must tremble as they trace useless runes in the air, words that he can speak in his sleep caught in his throat, because caleb’s hand catches his fingers and then the lines of his jaw, lines that he doesn’t even know now, but he knows those blue eyes, that creased brow, and he brings himself to focus on them instead.

“it is hard to adjust to such a drastic change,” caleb says gently, helping him to a seat on a crate much like the one on which essek thelyss sat and revealed his transgressions. “harder still when it is a change of necessity, not of choice.”

and he wonders if he’s ever truly seen caleb’s face before now, his bright eyes and his messy, frizzy hair, and he glances away before his eyes are dotted with sunspots at how much light is in that face. it is not a face that he should feel so much for, an unspeakable feeling bubbling up in his chest, one like warmth and burning at the same time.

essek thelyss does not deserve this, the compassion that he is being offered, but he is not essek thelyss anymore. it's the only thing that brings him comfort as caleb’s hand grasps his so firmly, an anchor to keep him from drifting away now that he may have found safe harbor.

“you look nice,” caleb offers with that smile that he can’t name, the one that makes it seem as though he has already lost whatever he is looking for. 

he smiles back, and the melancholy hangs in the room like a fog. this is not the celebration that veth’s transformation sounded like it inspired—this is survival, nothing more, as much the rest of the party’s as his own. he is putting them in terrible danger by being here, but they do not trust him enough to let him out of their sight. in the end, this was what he choose to do, but not out of any real desire to do so. 

caleb, for his part, never tried to demand that he stay, but he almost wishes he had. he’d not have needed convincing if caleb had asked him to stay, but he’d remained silent through the discussion, his brows furrowed and his expression dark, nothing like the man in front of him, staring at him with the intensity of a sun.

“thank you,” he finally remembers to respond, and exhales through new lungs. “it is… strange. not unpleasant. just… strange.”

“yes, I can imagine.” caleb doesn’t let go of his hand, and it is not a comfort he can yet bring himself to accept, but he still cannot let go. “would you like to see the sun?”

his heart leaps in his throat, brand new and untrained, traitorous in its eager beating. it does not yet know what kind of cold soul has inhabited its chambers, and he can’t suppress the hope in his chest—as much as the stranger’s body he exists in now can be qualified as his.

but then, how much had he ever laid claim to his first form? it was merely a vessel for a soul, as is this. his soul has not been absolved of its guilt, as much as he would like to run from it, but at least now he has the opportunity to make up for it in kind.

he lets caleb tug him to his feet—bare and tanned, his whole body just slightly larger than the one he is used to, so he is unsteady as he moves through the decks and up the wooden stairs.

it feels like he is being pulled along by a wildfire as caleb sweeps him onto the deck and into the sun, and he instinctively flinches against it—but even as dim as the ship is below the surface, his eyes adjust much faster than he is used to, and he blinks away the light as the warmth of the sun hits his skin.

it is so much softer than he is used to, and the warmth reaches to his soul like a hand grasping his. it's so sudden and so all-encompassing that for a moment he can’t catch his breath. “oh,” he says softly, so so softly, as though speaking too loudly will shatter this feeling into pieces. the others have left them to get supplies in nicodranas, and they are alone on the deck of the ship, in the light of the sun, and he thinks that caleb beneath it is the most radiant thing he has ever seen, even now that the sun overhead has kissed his skin.

traitorous thoughts, but he is a traitor after all. what more can treason hurt when it has already cost him one life, as it may have been—no matter when he first dies, essek thelyss will never live again.

that’s alright. if truth be told, essek thelyss would never have admitted that perhaps he can see the appeal of the light after all. what need does he have for a beacon, though, when the sun stands before him, and looks at him like maybe, just maybe, he can one day learn radiance like this.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Let me know what you thought—this format's a little more stream of consciousness than what I normally write!


End file.
